Gender in IR Flashcards
Gender meaning
Cultural meanings attached to masculinity and femininity. This can influence our gender identity. Social meanings produce ideas about men and women.
Sex meaning
Mix of biological traits associated with being male or female.
How does engagement with binary construction work?
Blue for men, pink for women. Differ in representations of the genders. Read the world around us from a young age.
Masculine binaries
- Independent
- Rational
- Civilised
- Productive
- Public, political sphere
Feminine binaries
- Dependent
- Emotional
- Primitive
- Reproductive
- Domestic political sphere
What have Western systems of thought done?
Practice gender as two binary opposites. Hierarchical construction where masculinity has more privilege than femininity.
What happens when people go against the binary?
Can result in sexism and misogyny.
Gender as a relation of power
- Impacts experiences, global lack of women as heads of state. Power dispersal in IR. Persistent privilege of the masculine over the feminine.
- Patriarchal relation of power
What do feminists in IR argue?
The field of IR has lacked attention to gender. Centred upon spheres of politics dominated by men. Lacks attention to the experiences of women. Obscures how gender is relevant in the arenas dominated by men.
Liberal perspective
Focus on women and their experiences of inequality. Change within existing structures. Legal, scholarly structures. More likely to be positivist.
Standpoint perspective
A woman’s experience is crucial. Women have different experiences so we should take their standpoint and see what it reveals about IR. Essentialises women’s experiences, question of intersectionality. Different forms of inequality and oppression.
Postcolonial standpoint
Intersection of gender, race, and colonial logics in IR. Role of gender in the production of racialised and colonial practices, hierarchies and modes of violence in IR.
Post structural standpoint
Gendered discourses shape IR. Systems of meaning attached to gender in a particular context. Language, discourse and power critical to the role of gender in IR.
Queer standpoint
Understand how ideas about sexuality shape our world. Looks homophobic/transphobic discourses and heteronormativity. Challenging binary understandings of sexuality, sex and gender.
